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Switching card transactions in Europe: An interview with Ernst Verbeek
Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems,
11
(1),
6-14
(2017)
Abstract
According to the European Central Bank, more than 780 million payment cards were in circulation in Europe by the end of 2015; in turn, these cards had been used to process more than 52 billion transactions. Card switching is the domain that sits between the issuer and the acquirer when a transaction is processed, and that domain is often overlooked. The switching domain is under constant change: acquirers and, to a lesser extent, issuers are starting to support all card brands as long as there is a customer demand for them. Further, regulation is impacting switching. To talk about a European payments market is a misnomer as a single market does not exist in the way that it does for other industries. Market actors still have a very country-centric orientation, although it cannot be denied that this is changing, even if the talk of change far outweighs the change actually happening. It is safe to say, however, that the market, helped along by new regulation, is in a state of constant change. In this interview, Ernst Verbeek, CEO of Trionis, discusses the specifics of the payment card switching industry and the constant change impacting this domain.
Keywords: SEPA for cards, Trionis, card switching, ISC (international card schemes), EUFISERV, domestic card schemes, interbank-switching, card scheme
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Ernst Verbeek is Managing Director of Trionis, the company that was separated from the EUFISERV scheme to become a brand-neutral interbank switch processor for point-of-sale (POS) and automated teller machine transactions, jointly owned by European banks and their processors or associations. He previously worked for First Data, where he was responsible for the company’s operations in Western Europe. During 2006, Mr Verbeek oversaw the completion of the acquisition of Gesellschaft für Zahlungssysteme mbH (GZS), Germany’s leading processor of cashless card-based payment transactions, and the integration of the business into First Data’s EMEA organisation. He also had responsibility for TeleCash, a leading POS terminal and network services provider in Germany, and for First Data’s acquisition of APSS, later renamed First Data Austria. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics and an MBA from INSEAD in France.
Diederik Bruggink is Managing Director of Bruggink Consultancy and is an independent international expert in cards, payments, and market infrastructures. During his career, he has led and worked on several international and high-visibility projects, mainly with a focus on cashless payments, across the whole payments value chain, from (e-commerce) merchant acquisition through to issuing banks and within card switching and card processing organisations. He was one of the key authors of the first three editions of the ‘World Payments Report’, and he makes regular appearances on conferences in the cards and payments industry. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems.
